Gambling with interests

"You have to make some money before you can do some good": Balancing the commercial, social and public health objectives in a "community enterprise" regulatory model for alcohol and cannabis

INTRODUCTION

New Zealand's alcohol licensing trusts are social enterprises that operate retail alcohol outlets in their districts and distribute profits back to the community. There have been calls for a similar "social enterprise" approach to legal cannabis sales. However, social enterprises face unique challenges in balancing commercial and social objectives.

AIM

To explore mechanisms that support the balancing of commercial, social and public health objectives in alcohol trusts and identify learnings for cannabis reform.

METHOD

Thematic analysis of interviews with 16 internal and external key informants (trust board members, trust retail managers, community activists, law enforcement) from two alcohol trust districts.

RESULTS

Key informants overwhelmingly conceptualised alcohol trusts as business entities, but commercial success was also seen as a means to help the community. Interviewees' perceptions of trusts' social mission ranged from simple "corporate social responsibility" to a "genuine" community orientation. Despite a near-monopolistic market position, forces within and outside the trusts create pressures to conform to standard commercial behaviour, including strategic placement of alcohol outlets. Participants attributed the potential public health benefits of the trusts to reduced density of alcohol retail outlets and ease of enforcement. The pragmatic political goal of maintaining a favourable public image (to secure survival of the trust and re-election of individual trustees) was the key mechanism balancing commercial and social objectives. Ethical dilemmas related to the sale of alcohol and conflicts of interest in allocating community funds were evident. Discord was "negotiated" with the community via the public discussion and voting, providing opportunity to correct mission drift.

CONCLUSIONS

The need to maintain a positive public image (to ensure favourable electoral results) was a key mechanism helping to balance the commercial and social goals of alcohol trusts. A community trust model for retail cannabis sales could similarly provide constraints on commercial behaviour while funding community services.

Research in the field of gambling disorders funded by gambling providers: lessons to learn fromthe pharmaceutical industry?

Abstract. Introduction: The importance of research funding for potential conflicts of interests has been widely discussed in the field of substance-related disorders: research funding by industries producing alcohol, tobacco or drugs as well as by pharmaceutical companies contains a substantial risk of publication bias, conflicts of health care authorities as well as researchers and opinion leaders in the field of addiction research and medicine. Disclosure of all conflicts of interest is an indispensable consequence in every case. Extent of financial support, fields of sponsoring and publication bias are presented. Due to parallels between funding in substance related research and research on pathological gambling and the industrial interest in research of pathological gambling interferences as common in the research of other substances have to be considered as problematic. Discussion and Conclusion: We need (1) evaluation of the potential conflicts of interest on the part of state organizations (2) limitation of advertising and indirect sponsoring, (3) disclosure of any financial and non-financial relationship and, in particular, the scope of a financial relationship between universities, research institutes, study leaders, authors, reviewers and responsible editors of research journals on the gambling providers, (4) a rating system that quantifies a potential publication bias, (5) an exclusion of persons with significant sponsorship in the past five years from responsible functions with regard to the field of gambling, and (6) a pool of public funds for research funding managed by an independent body.